What was the Starmer Karma moment all about?

I was 13 years-old when one of the world’s most powerful TV commercials was aired in 1986. You may remember it? Shot like a grainy black and white silent film, the ad shows the same scene from three different angles: a skinhead sprinting aggressively towards a man with a briefcase as an authoritative white, male voice-over explains, "An event seen from one point of view gives one impression; seen from a different point of view it gives quite a different impression. But it’s only when you get the full picture, you can truly understand what’s going on."

To the skin-head-wary this appears to be a mugging. But it is revealed to be an act of outstanding bravery as the ‘yob’ pushes briefcase man out of harm’s way as a ton of bricks topples from scaffolding overhead.

You can watch it here, but I warn you, it will make you sad and nostalgic for days when journalists were proud of independent integrity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SsccRkLLzU

It came to my mind in the last 24 hours when I watched the hullabaloo caused by some angry people unencumbered by jobs on a Monday afternoon, shouting at Labour leader, Kier Starmer and the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy.

In the footage the pair leave New Scotland Yard surrounded by police and security agents and proceed to walk for at least 90 seconds towards - and then through - a group of people shouting about freeing “Julian Assange” (a symbol of oppressive censorship); “the Freemasons” (a symbol of covert elitist nepotism) and a rather well-spoken young man who was so close to Starmer that he got a clear view of his face from about three feet asks, “What’s it like ignoring everything that’s going on right now?”

Another man - with excellent voice projection - asks, “Why aren’t you opposing the government? Why aren’t you standing up for our constitution?” Why aren’t you standing up for the working class man?” Even the most casual observer of politics must admit that these are valid questions. For the protesters, this confrontation was Karma catching up on Starmer.

The scene is definitely rowdy. The flashing police lights and fluorescent uniforms lend a dramatic backdrop befitting of an ITV police drama. You can see why it’s been watched over a million times on various twitter feeds.

The loudest voice is the police-officer leading the parade shouting, “Get back” as people move compliantly out of his way. A middle-aged lady in leather gloves and a burgundy scarf points at Starmer and shouts, “Traitor” and someone asks if he “Likes working for The New World Order” in reference to Global Technocrats enacting the World Economic Forum’s Global Reset Agenda.

If you listen very carefully, one man asks why Starmer, “Protected paedophiles.”

Oh a bloke who looks a lot like Keith Allen calls him a “F***ing C*nt” (but there’s always one of those).

Dozens of young men got close enough to take a swing had they not been too busy filming on their phones or keeping their hands warm in their pockets (it was a cold day and Millennials have grown up with central heating, bless ‘em).

But something about the timing of the whole interaction didn’t ring true. It felt a tad…staged and it was certainly not as perilous as media outlets would have you believe.

 The 13 year-old girl inside of me wanted to know all the angles. So I asked what had really happened on Twitter and, of course, people who were actually there sent me footage from various vantage points and eye-witness accounts. Thank God for alternative media in 2022! The conclusion is interesting.

I’ve been to some of The Freedom Marches to raise awareness of the perils of vaccinating the children. I don’t know the protesters in these clips personally but I have met some who were there and I know how some of them operate. I also know how the media works and there is a concerted campaign right now to beat Boris into retreat.

I also know that some politicians will spin anything that they think will paint them in a positive light – especially if the oils and brushes are handed to them by a Prime Minister teetering on the edge of a boot-up-the-backside by his own party.

Let’s remember that this whole shebang started when Boris Johnson, on the ropes in the House of Commons over cheese and wine parties, used a move straight out of the daytime-panel-show playbook and launched an Ad Hominin attack on Keir Starmer for “failing to prosecute Jimmy Saville” when he was head of the director of public prosecutions.

At the time Starmer sat motionless on the front bench of The Commons, eyes boring into Johnson, but you didn’t have to be Mystic Meg to read, “God, you’re a prick…” just behind them.

In that moment a penny would have dropped for Starmer: Johnson had just rendered him vulnerable to anyone with vigilante-paedophile-hunting tendencies. I would argue that anyone with vigilante-paedophile-hunting tendencies (there aren’t that many of them) already knew about Starmer’s bit-part in Saville’s escape. They didn’t suddenly sit up in front of the TV and ask, “He did what?”

But just as Trump was accused of inciting the Capitol Hill riots by telling Americans, 'If you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore,’ Johnson had handed Starmer a stick with which he - and the Labour Party - could beat him as long as there were actual consequences to those words.

Little did Starmer know that one of Johnson’s closest allies would help this sorry tale along. Munira Murza, Johnson’s 12-year-old  Policy Chief resigned saying that the PM should have apologised for the misleading remarks.

Which brings us round to Keith Allen and his gobby crew. Thanks to the Twitterati I know that there was indeed a gathering of people who might need graphic design lessons but who aren’t afraid of an early start at Downing Street. This crowd is headed up by Piers Corbyn and other key protagonists but it’s incredibly disorganized. They have almost as many leaders and goals as Font styles.

But as evidenced by their shouts at Starmer and Lammy, it’s too simplistic to call them “Antivaxxers.” And they certainly aren’t vigilante-paedophile-hunters who sought out Starmer because Johnson alerted them to the Saville connection. To suggest so is utterly absurd.

As you can see, they have a lot of shit to do, including taking down the government and the ‘fake opposition.’ In shaky interviews you will see that some do indeed take their stream of consciousness all the way from a Globalist Agenda to Qanon through Epstein, child-sex trafficking and Satanic Ritualism. But – believe me - they can be more fun to chat to than someone who wonders if you’ve seen how expensive smoked salmon has become recently.

Yes, they are angry about Vaccine Mandates (aren’t we all) and yes, some believe that every jab will harm someone (clearly the results are not showing that yet).  

But most are essentially arguing for freedom of choice and would fight for your right to have a covid vaccine if you wanted one but the State said no.

Inevitably the media and MPs lining up to express their absolute horror at this “attack” on Starmer, described them as “Antivaxxers” – the catch-all term for anyone who dares to question the erosion of civil-liberties, dissolution of centuries-old legal principles or the protection of bodily freedom. Admittedly, that’s quite tricky to fit into a tabloid headline…but you get my point.

But the police knew exactly who the key characters were on Monday. They are effectively ageing hippies with fire in their bellies or young, lost souls with chaotic backgrounds. I genuinely wonder what Piers Corbyn did every day before Covid-19. But his freaky video on the tube singing that “wearing a mask is like trying to keep a fart in your trousers” will stay with me until my dying day and - I promise - it will cheer you up on every view.

The activists are not (all) stupid and some have incredible depths of knowledge around geopolitics, history and international monetary systems.

Some could be described as ‘vulnerable;’ they have had interactions with mental health services and have now found a tribe to whom they belong.

But the police know these eccentric outliers are not dangerous. Do we really think that a walk from Scotland Yard to Parliament would have been undertaken if there was even the suggestion of a genuine threat?

So one must wonder…did Starmer and Lammy have a little conflab inside Scotland Yard about next steps given the backdrop of Boris’s stupid Saville comment?

At that very moment, the Freedom protest had formed a ‘convoy’ on the Embankment.  Think busy Lidl car park rather than  Ottawa freeway. Police were giving out parking tickets and towing away a couple of 2005 Mondeos while receiving lectures on Klauss Scahwabb when Starmer decided to embark on his Catwalk of Chaos.

Starmer can’t blame an Uber cancellation like the rest of us. He has an official car with police protection. Why did he choose to walk a full two minutes along the pavement from New Scotland Yard to the steps of Portcullis House? I don’t know if there were members of a ‘controlled opposition’ in attendance. Some names who keep appearing at these gatherings were passed on to me but without proof it would be careless and unprofessional to reveal them. All Starmer needed was one person to shout the word “Paedophile” and Johnson would be guilty of inciting violence - at least in the eyes of his detractors.

There is a tunnel in Portcullis House from which MPs routinely nip across to the House of Commons. But no, he didn’t turn left into there to save himself from mortal danger. He chose to be ‘bundled into a police car’ (which must have delighted news editors) as he fled the ‘braying mob.’

Boris must have rolled his eyes thinking, “You w*nker Starmer”. Revenge is a dish best served cold and lawyer Starmer is good at it.

The prime minister had no choice but to issue a statement describing the "behaviour directed at the Leader of the Opposition" as "absolutely disgraceful.” But like a truculent fourteen-year-old caught buying in-game credits on his mum’s credit card, he still won’t say sorry for his Saville comment.

Lammy hammered home the point as soon as he could, casting Johnson in the image of Trump as a dangerous agitator saying that he was not surprised that the protesters were repeating Johnson's slurs and that "intimidation, harassment and lies have no place in our democracy.”

Let me repeat – violence is bad and we can all still feel genuine sadness at the thought of Jo and Brendan Cox’s children growing up without their mother and the recent loss of well-loved MP David Amess.

But this is not that. To even suggest that this pantomime is even close to those horrific crimes is disrespectful to those we have lost.

People must be allowed to protest – angrily if necessary. That’s what a free, Western democracy permits. We have excellent police officers trained to handle crowds. And sometimes our leaders need holding to account by the people who voted them in.

And besides, politicians have been yelled at since the days of The Whigs and The Tories. Have we already forgotten how high tensions ran when PM Margaret Thatcher introduced The Poll Tax in the 1980s?

Local councillors – never mind cabinet ministers – had to literally run the gauntlet in and out of office buildings. This image below of Birmingham City Council being stormed by protestors is just one of thousands taken during that time.

Almost daily, fists were thrown; cars set alight; there were bomb threats against public buildings. It was an era of mass disobedience in which thousands of people literally refused to pay their Poll Tax and the councils decided they were too expensive to pursue.

Compare that to the outrage caused by some people on the margins of society shouting at Keir Starmer who was flanked by more security men than there were protesters.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s a blessing that violence against anyone in public office is now incredibly rare. We should be appalled when any human being (not just MPs) are subjected to acts of intimidation and violence. It’s not nice; it’s not polite and it can causes genuine physical and emotional harm.

But we would do well to remember a time when we encouraged to question our inherent prejudices and think critically.

In 2022, very little is quite what it seems. We need to keep looking at every angle.